Unknown

by Paul Kelly

  He stalked over to Solomon who had been talking to Sybil. They were pointedly ignoring each other. Lots of love there.

  “Where are we going?” he asked. “And what’s with the Wyverns? And when are we going back to rescue Truth?”

  “To Ekriam,” answered Solomon simply, he suddenly spun around and pointed west. “To the east! Far, far to the east!”

  Elijah didn’t bother correcting him. “The old city that once housed all the strength and wealth of us Seers and is now more tightly controlled than the Skylands themselves in case we ever try to return? That makes sense. I can see why a secret organisation like the Future Storm would want to go there. I’m sure our lives won’t be threatened on a daily basis. And the Wyverns?”

  “To be honest, I don’t think they’ll be giving us a lift anytime soon,” replied Solomon cheerfully, ignoring Elijah’s sarcasm.

  “They will be punished for their treachery,” said Sybil in a monotone. The words sent shivers down Elijah’s spine.

  “That’s not what I meant,” answered Elijah. “I meant why were they attacking the Skylands?”

  “I’d tell you, but I’d be worried that someone here might try and use it to betray us and then later kill us,” he jerked his head to his left and then leaned in and whispered covertly. “I’m talking about Sybil.”

  Sybil rolled her eyes.

  “Excuses,” growled Elijah.

  “But darn good ones!” replied Solomon brightly, turning away from him and indicating that he should follow. “Now come on, we have moving to do.”

  Elijah didn’t complain. The faster they got out from underneath the floating island’s shadow the better.

  “What about Truth?” he asked, hurrying after him.

  “The Future Storm must regroup,” replied Solomon. “We will travel to Ekriam and join forces with our army there. They will decide when the next attack on the Skylands will be.”

  “She could be dead by then!” argued Elijah. Beside him, Sybil seemed to be making a very intense study of her shoes.

  Solomon shrugged. “It’s either that or you go up there by yourself, somehow get past all the guards, figure out what mine she’s in and rescue her all while shining like a homing beacon for any Skylander who has a particular grudge against Seers – which is all of them.”

  “There has to be another way!” Elijah answered, feeling despair overwhelm him. He couldn’t lose Truth too. Not after just losing his father. Not after everything he’d gone through to try and get her back. The thought of her, always so happy and cheerful, being broken by the Skylanders made him want to a scream. Solomon put a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that everyone seemed to think helped but never did.

  “I’m sorry Elijah.”

  Beside him, Sybil refused to meet his eyes. “You really think your people are so just, chaining up children?” Elijah asked, his voice strained.

  Sybil didn’t answer. Elijah grabbed her shoulder. “Hey! I’m talking to you here!”

  Sybil looked at him, her eyes panicked. And then she collapsed.

  Chapter 15 – EarthSky

  “You are close to me Sybil, I can feel it,” Tommen’s voice screeched through Sybil’s mind like a banshee. “Come back to me Sybil, all is forgiven.”

  Sybil fell to her knees, her hands tight against her ears. She shut her eyes, willing the noise away. Still Tommen’s voice penetrated her mind, every syllable drilling into the base of her skull and setting her very thoughts aflame.

  “Bring the boy back to me Sybil,” Tommen’s voice whispered. “He is dangerous. You will be rewarded if you bring the boy back.”

  “More dangerous than you?” hissed Sybil, through gritted teeth.

  She knelt in the desert sands, hunched over with her head between her knees. Around her, the night was still, her fight with Tommen a storm in an ocean of calm. Instinctually, she sought the Pulse, but it was distant, beyond her control and would not be moulded to her will. Instead, all she heard was Tommen’s voice, slithering through her brain like a snake.

  “You know it is true. It has been foretold. He will break the Wyvern’s wings. And without the Wyvern’s the Skylands are nothing.”

  Every syllable sent a shock through Sybil’s body and she knelt in the sand, moaning in pain. Beside her, Elijah laid a hand on her shoulder, his expression concerned. For an Earthlander to feel concern for a Skylander went against everything Sybil had ever known. Earthlanders, least of all Seers, did not care for Skylanders. They did not pity them, they did not help them. They were nothing but dangerous animals whose power needed to be neutralised, whose lying tongues needed to be stilled. And yet…

  The Future Storm had manipulated the timeline, something Sybil had always been assured could literally mean the end of the world. And yet they lived. Elijah had had countless opportunities to end her life, simply by doing nothing. And yet she lived. But above all else, Earthlanders were meant to despise the Skylanders to hate them with every fibre of their being. And yet he cared.

  “Bring him to me or everything that has been built will be destroyed!”

  Sybil looked up at Elijah’s face. He knelt in front of her now. Around them the Future Storm paused in their marching and a circle began to form around them.

  “You cannot control me anymore,” Sybil hissed, every word an effort.

  “Who are you talking to?” Elijah asked, his eyes frightened. As if he hadn’t spent the day talking to an animal.

  “Probably her imaginary friend,” grunted Solomon. “Skylanders have no families. Imaginary friends and spontaneous mental breakdowns are more common than you’d think. Come on, let’s leave her in the desert to die.” He began to pull Elijah away from her.

  “It’s Tommen,” gasped Sybil, in desperation more than anything else. “He still lives.”

  The effect was instantaneous. A hush descended on the army as her words reverberated outwards through the group in a whisper. They all knew of Tommen. His name was legendary, even in the Earthlands. The whisper moved outwards in a wave, panic rising as it spread.

  “What’s going on here?” Ash barked, striding towards them through the crowd.

  Sybil didn’t reply, every ounce of her concentration focused on keeping Tommen’s voice at bay.

  “Bring him to me!” he roared in the recesses of her mind.

  Elijah answered for her. “It’s Tommen. He’s still alive. He’s… talking to Sybil.”

  Ash raised an eyebrow.“Why is this happening now?” she asked. “Why didn’t he try speaking to her in the caves?”

  “The Island…” stammered Sybil through gritted teeth. “The Pulse holds the Skylands aloft and he controls it…”

  Ash followed her gaze and frowned. “He can only talk to you when you’re close by?” Sybil shrugged a yes, her face strained.

  Above them, the Island seemed to shake with malice. Meanwhile, all around them, the pretence of the Future Storm being a tightly controlled military force was swiftly being abandoned. Seers and soldiers fled the crater as fast as they could, leaving pots and pans strewn in their wake. All eyes were on the sky, scanning the air for Wyverns. Ash did not seem perturbed.

  “Keep moving!” she shouted. “I want to be out of this crater by dawn.” She turned back to Sybil and a strange smile lit her face. “You are going to be very useful to us, Student.”

  Ash turned and walked away. Beside her, Elijah offered her his hand. Sybil tried not to cringe away from it. With Tommen against her, she needed all the help she could get. Even if it did come from Seer-Earthlander scum.

  “Seems like she wants to keep you as an early warning system for Tommen,” said Elijah, in that tone of voice people use when they are unsure if everyone else has yet grasped the obvious. Sybil just nodded and tried not to fall over. She failed. Elijah offered her his shoulder and Sybil had to struggle not to slap him. An Earthlander supporting a Student of the Drum! The very thought. She stood up again and immediately fell ove
r. She revised her opinion and took the shoulder of the Seer-Earthlander scum. Together, they began to struggle up the steep incline of the crater.

  Beside them Solomon walked, one eye on Elijah and another on Sybil. Somehow, the eye trained on Sybil managed to glare.

  “We could just leave her,” he suggested helpfully.

  “She saved my life in that attack,” replied Elijah. “We’re not leaving her.”

  Sybil felt a surge of gratitude for the Seer. Somehow, when she leaned on him, Tommen’s voice seemed a little further away, as if he was protecting her. In the back of her mind, Tommen continued to scream, but as they walked, Sybil began to feel like she could ignore it.

  “Wait a second,” she said, a realisation dawning on her. She let go of Elijah.

  “You will never survive in the Earthlands, Sybil!” Tommen’s voice screamed and Sybil fell to her knees, her head pounding with pain. She shut her eyes, making fists in the sand and with all the concentration she could muster said: “Give me your hand.”

  Elijah, looking puzzled, gave it to her. Instantly Tommen’s voice receded into the distance. She gasped for breath and got to her feet again.

  “What’s going on?” Elijah asked.

  “Touching you seems to keep Tommen at bay,” replied Sybil, unsure herself. It was like Elijah was slamming the door on Tommen. She could still hear him, but the voice was muffled. From his pocket, Elijah fished out the spherical power shard.

  “Maybe it’s the magical string-cutting power shard?” he handed it to her. Sybil took it and suddenly Tommen was gone. Never mind closing a door, when she was holding the power shard it was more like she’d blown up the whole house with Tommen in it. She smiled in relief.

  “Thank you,” she said, putting real gratitude in her voice.

  Elijah shrugged. “Not much I can do with a power shard out here anyway. Do you think Tommen knows where we are?”

  Sybil swept her hand across the vast expanse of the desert. “Even if he does, he’d never find us.”

  “You could have told him where we are. You could have gone home.” Elijah let the question hang unspoken in the air between them.

  Solomon answered it anyway. “Probably so she could stab us in the back later,” he grunted.

  “Tommen was kept locked up for a reason,” Sybil replied, ignoring him. “His control of the Pulse is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Now that he is free… there are none in the Skylands who could stop him. Even if I could go back, I would be returning to a dictatorship. And there is always the risk of another Wyvern attack.” She stopped speaking for a moment, her own words echoing in her ears. Her whole world was falling apart and if the Wyverns had their way that could literally happen. She straightened her back and when she spoke again her voice was determined. “There is work I must complete here.”

  They continued walking for hours, with the sun getting hotter and hotter above them. When at last Ash called a halt to the endless march the sun had reached its zenith and Sybil was pretty sure she would have just collapsed if they had kept going. Some had and were being half carried, half dragged by soldiers who looked like they wished they were doing anything else. As soon as they stopped, other soldiers got to work unpacking tents. They took out the tents with practiced precision, barely seeming tired. She supposed terrorists needed to know how to survive in the barren wastelands that civilised society spurned.

  “You may sleep until sunset!” Ash announced. “After that we move again.”

  Soon the tents were ready and Sybil, Elijah and Solomon crammed into one with two others she did not recognise. She had just fallen asleep when a soldier opened the flap and called into them.

  “Get up! Ash wants you!”

  So much for sleeping till sunset.

  “Time passes, when the quietened rise again,

  Weep for the pain that shall be faced and laugh for the joy of the wind,

  For from the lands of Aubrey, a terror shall rise, and he shall break the wind and bring hope to the broken.

  Wisdom shall guide his footsteps and the earth and the wind shall watch over him.

  The Sky will be his companion and war shall mark his coming.

  Think on this in the days of captivity, when memories are broken and your children are but slaves,

  For he shall rend the earth and tame the beasts of flames and when all hope has faded amongst the city of your birth, the Sky shall fall.”

  Ash finished the recital calmly and folded her arms, regarding Elijah and Sybil. She was good at regarding people that way, Sybil decided.

  She turned to Elijah. “Is this really why Solomon thinks you’re so important? Because you will make the Sky fall?”

  “It could happen,” Elijah said defensively.

  Sybil raised one eyebrow, a gesture that had taken considerable time in front of a mirror to perfect. She was quite proud of it.

  Ash coughed. “I do not think you fully understand the gravity of the situation, Student. He is the Aontaithe, the one prophesied to destroy your world.”

  A sudden chill shook Sybil, but she refused to be cowed.

  “I understand perfectly,” she replied. “I just choose not to fear it.”

  Behind her, Solomon snorted in derision. “Whether you choose to fear it or not, it spells your death, Student.”

  “And yours, old man,” replied Sybil.

  “Oh really?” asked Solomon. “Does it say the Earth will fall? I’m pretty sure all I heard was that the Sky would fall. There was no mention of anything happening to me.”

  “I think the miracle of gravity would take care of that-”

  “What I don’t understand,” interrupted Elijah, “is what all this has to do with me. I’m not even from Aubrey. If a terror is supposed to be rising, it can’t be me.”

  Silence engulfed the tent. They had thought they had found their saviour, Sybil realised, and he had just dashed their hopes. Solomon did not seem perturbed though.

  “I know it’s you Elijah. Me and Xanthius have been searching for you for a very, very long time. We have traced your lineage back a thousand years. There is no doubt in my mind that you are the one we have been searching for. Why do you think Xanthius rescued you to begin with?”

  “Oh I forgot. The all knowing Wyvern. What does this have to do with the Wyverns anyway? Why’s it their prophecy? Why does a big glowing lizard-”

  Suddenly he cut off. They all did, their mouths gaping open as if deliberately trying to flaunt their still-attached tongues in front of her. Elijah and Ash’s skin began glowing. Then Xanthius walked in. Great, exclude the person who can’t talk to the glowing Wyvern.

  Elijah muttered something to himself and sat back down. Ash did likewise. Solomon remained standing.

  Xanthius paced to the centre of the tent, paying Sybil only a cursory glance.

  “Well then, go on,” muttered Elijah.

  The Wyvern obviously said something because Elijah answered, “What do you mean your prophecy? Wyverns can’t prophesy.”

  Elijah’s eyes widened. “No, that can’t be true… that’s impossible.” Sybil reached her breaking point. She cleared her throat.

  “What, may I ask, is impossible?” she asked, through gritted teeth.

  “The Wyverns…” stuttered Elijah. “It all makes sense now…”

  “What makes sense now?” asked Sybil, more than a hint of anger entering her voice.

  “Why they can only talk to Seers, why we glow around them, why they arrived when the Skylands did…”

  “They arrived by providence, so that we may exercise our dominance over all of EarthSky,” Sybil answered crisply.

  “No,” breathed Elijah. “The first Wyverns, they were the last Seers… they didn’t come with the Skylands...” He took a deep breath, steadying himself as a deep sinking feeling entered Sybil’s gut. When he spoke again, it was as if every word lasted an age. “They created them.”

  Sybil felt sic
k, her mind reeling. Her vision blurred for a second and from her nose she felt blood drip. “What do you mean, they created them?” she asked shakily, but she knew the answer. Elijah was right, it made sense, it all fit together so perfectly.

  “Six Seers survived the Silence,” Elijah answered, his voice breathless.

  “Seven,” corrected Solomon absently. Sybil stared at the old Seer in horror. Of course, he already knew all this, he had lived through it. She felt her stomach heave. Her hands began to shake.

  “Those six,” continued Elijah. “Joined together, pooling their energies to rip apart the earth. They created your Islands, Sybil. The Pulse, that pure power that you’re so proud of, it’s just the remnants of the power they used, constantly being reused through the timeline…”

  “No,” Sybil groaned, feeling nausea fill her. “No, it’s not possible…”

  “But it took its toll,” continued Elijah, clearly reciting the words of Xanthius who stared intently at Sybil from the centre of the room.

  “It changed them, altered their bodies into living embodiments of the timeline. Don’t you see Sybil? It’s why they glow when Seers are around, why they make us glow too, why they tried to destroy the Island of Tommen. They thought it would make them human again.”

  “No!” screamed Sybil, clapping her hands over her ears. “No, it’s not true!”

  Her stomach heaved, her vision blurring, blood flowing down her chin. The implications were overwhelming. It was a lie. Everything was a lie. The Pulse, it was just as dirty, just as dangerous, just as contaminated as the timeline. The deaths it had caused in the early days of the Drum, they were not proof of their right to rule, they were just deaths… Nausea pummelled her and she fell forward, her hands supporting her weight. Suddenly, she felt her intestines squirm, her gut groaning, forcing open her mouth as she vomited all across the floor of the tent.